Local merchants typically interact with customers through face-to-face dialogue in-store, or through a website. However, many local merchants lack the resources and infrastructure to develop a robust website. Moreover, many merchants of all sizes lack the capability to engage directly with users who search for them, at the time of the search, but often wait to interact with the user, until after the user enters the merchant's store, sends an email, or the like.
Moreover, typical customer promotions are delivered independently of customer transactions by mass mailing, or by electronic advertising. Local merchants typically lack the data necessary to create individually targeted advertising and deliver it to the consumer. Typical customer promotions are generic (e.g., coupons), and the customer promotions also typically require a customer to locate the promotion, remember its terms, and manually request it to be applied to a transaction at the point-of-sale.